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Everyone probably knows that wearable technology has been popping up everywhere over the past year. Whether it’s a smart watch or a fitness tracker, I’m sure the majority of people have at least seen one before. I’ve had my Apple Watch for about 6 months and while my first thought was to give a review about it right away, I decided to wait and really get to know the watch and its little bugs and quirks. Now I can give you my honest review after using the watch daily for about half a year.

Pros:

For me the pros were noticeable right away. I am the kind of person who does not have my phone with me most of the time. I don’t have pockets and I just don’t feel the need to carry my phone around with me when I’m around my house or in my home. This means I usually missed phone calls and wouldn’t see messages until much later. The watch is really helpful to check messages as they come in and take calls without having to run around and find my phone. I also don’t have to pull my phone out of my pocket to see why it buzzed.

I also enjoyed the “ping phone” feature on my watch. Like I said I don’t carry my phone with me. I also will just absentmindedly put my phone down and just walk away. This makes the rush out the door oh-so-much-fun when you can’t find your phone in the house. At least now I can ping my phone even if it’s on silent (which it usually is) and I can find it in a matter of seconds. Now if only I could have that feature on all my things…

Finally I really enjoyed using Siri and some of the apps on my watch. Siri on my watch works great when I want to change songs in the car or if I need to start a timer for dinner. The alarm and timer app on the watch are constantly used as well as my weather app. I even customized my watch face so I always know what the temperature is outside when I’m heading out the door. I also enjoyed the ability to draw little pictures and send them to other users (aka my husband). Not only is it fun, but if you’re babysitting it keeps some kids entertained for quite some time.

Cons:

Now for the downsides. To start, this watch has been marketed as a way to use apps on your phone without getting out your phone. However, I’ve found a lot of the apps that developers make for the watch to be quite useless. Things like the twitter and instagram app seem good in theory, but in actual practice they are tedious and have no functionality. Many of the third party apps for the watch are, at most, very stripped down versions of their phone app. It’s just more effective to use your phone rather than the watch.

Another issue I had with the watch was with the Activities app. Apple really hyped this feature because it has rings that will fill up as you are active, standing, and exercising. However, I’ve had problems with the watch not always recognizing when I’m standing or moving around. I’ve had my watch tell me I should stand up and walk around for a minute when I had been up and about for the past hour. While it’s not a major bug, it is a slight annoyance to be chastised by your watch when it isn’t reading your movements correctly.

My final issue I ran into was with using Siri. Now I usually use my watch as a hands-free way to change my music or set a timer when my hands are full. This becomes more challenging when Siri decides not to respond to you. I’ve found that sometimes Siri will just be unresponsive and not pick up on my talking even when I’m yelling at it. While I’ve found just quickly pressing the dial on the side will sort of re-set this and get Siri to start working again, it is still a bit aggravating when your technology won’t listen to you in your moment of need.

Final Opinions:

Overall I’ve really been enjoying my Apple Watch. While it isn’t without its flaws, and no technology is flawless, a few little bugs here and there have not tarnished my feelings about this watch. It is functional for my needs and has made my life just a little bit easier. While it may not be for everyone, I’ve really grown attached to my watch and I know I’ll be using it for the foreseeable future.

It’s the end of January and I haven’t gotten around to posting anything yet! Well at least I still have a few hours to make the January cutoff. January 2016 has been the beginning of my new start. At the end of 2015, after being very sick sick and having all my plans fall apart, I made some goals for myself for the new year. I’ve (surprisingly) been sticking to them throughout the month of January. Though there are only two goals, I think they are goals everyone can relate to.

1) Take care of myself: Now this is a hard one for me. I love to take care of everyone else and make sure everyone around me is okay, but I tend to forget about myself and will sometimes overwork and over-stress myself until I’m sick and need to stop everything. This year I’m focusing on making sure I’m alright and okay. It’s hard to help others when you can’t help yourself, so I’m just doing a mental check once or twice a week to make sure I’m okay and taking care of myself (fingers crossed I get better soon!).

2) Finish what you start: I am known for starting all sorts of little projects around the house, but I tend to get bored or tired of them halfway through and just leave them for later. I’ve decided this year is the year things get done. I’ve made a list of all my little projects and I’m slowly whittling them down until I finish them all. The major rule for this is I cannot start any other projects until I finish all my older ones. No matter how badly I want to start another project I use that as incentive to finish my current works in progress. So far I haven’t finished any projects, but I have a few that are very close to completion.

So that’s what I’ve been up to in the new year so far. It may not seem like much, but I feel like these are achievable goals that focus on some of my weaknesses that I’d like to work on. At least I’m never without something to do.

I’ll be posting some more in February as I have a few little projects in the works that I’m sure will be interesting to some of you. Until next time!

Hello everyone and happy St. Nicholas Day! Since it is St. Nicholas Day I thought I’d talk about advent calendars. Now we all know about those chocolate advent calendars we used to get as kids, but those days of simple advent calendars are long gone. Now we live in the age where you can get an advent calendar filled with anything! Jewellery? They have one. Beauty/makeup/skincare? They have one with those too. I’ve even seen a beer advent calendar where you get a new craft beer to try every day. This year I decided to go the non-traditional route and get Lego advent calendars. Let me tell you, they have been nothing but fun. I picked up the Star Wars and the Lego City advent calendars because I wanted a little variety (though I was very tempted to get two Star Wars calendars). Every day you get a little Lego character or item that you get to build. Once they’re built you can place them on the little scene that comes attached to the calendar. It’s lots of fun and way better than chocolate in my opinion.

Also, if you want your pet to get in on the advent action there are always advent calendars specifically for pets (I had no idea this even existed until I saw them at PetsMart). The one we have has a gluten free treat every day (our dog can’t have gluten so it’s awesome that they cater to specific diets).

For today’s blogmas I thought I would give my review on the GLAMGLOW GIFTSEXY Dazzling Hydration Set. Now, before I start I just want to let you know I am not yelling the product names at you. Their names are actually all capitalized.

I had never tried any of the GLAMGLOW products before, but I had heard many good things about them and wanted to see what the hype was about. I got this set from Sephora and I picked this one because it comes with 2 masks, a cleanser, and an applicator brush. Since the gift set costs just slightly more than a full size mask, I thought I’d take the chance and try a few products. Since I have dry skin that sometimes breaks out I thought this set would be a good choice since it comes with a full size of the THIRSTYMUD mask and a deluxe size of the SUPERMUD cleansing mask.

THIRSTYMUD Treatment: This is probably my favourite product from the entire set. I initially thought this was a mask, but after reading the little instruction manual that came with the set I learned that it can be used as a mask but it is more like a treatment that doesn’t have to be washed off. The product itself has a really nice scent that is almost like almond or coconut, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. It was really easy to apply and it left my skin feeling really hydrated the next morning. It also didn’t react at all with my sensitive skin which is a huge bonus to me. I’m really looking forward to using this product in the upcoming winter months and I will possibly repurchase it in the future.

SUPERMUD Cleansing Mask: Now this product I was really excited to try. I sometimes have breakouts around my t-zone and I thought it would be nice to use this as a spot treatment to take care of those problem areas. The mask is kind of minty and leaves a tingling/cooling sensation as it dries. As for results, I haven’t noticed a large difference but my skin has been pretty good the past few weeks so I’ll probably get more noticeable results if I use it during a breakout time. A word of warning for people with sensitive skin, this mask is one of the more powerful cleansing masks that I’ve used. I found my skin went a little reddish for about 20 minutes after using the mask. Since I use this as a spot treatment it doesn’t bother me too much, but I wouldn’t suggest using this on your entire face if you have sensitive skin. I’m going to keep on using this product, but I’m going to keep an eye out to make sure I don’t have any more reactions to the product and I probably wouldn’t repurchase it.

Thirstycleanse Daily Hydrating Cleanser: So this was the one product I wasn’t exactly jumping to try. I find a lot of cleansers are just really harsh on my skin and leave it feeling dry and tight. However, this cleanser was a pleasant surprise. It’s a mud to foam cleanser which basically means it comes out of the pump looking and smelling exactly like the THIRSTYMUD treatment. You massage it over your dry skin and then add water to work it into a foam. The cleanser left my skin feeling soft and moisturized which is an unusual experience for me. I haven’t used it to remove makeup or anything so I can’t really say if it does an exceptional job cleansing, but it’s nice and I’ll definitely use it up.

Applicator: While the applicator looks nice and has soft bristles, I could have honestly done without it. I really never used it at all to apply the masks, and honestly it’s just another thing I’m going to have to clean if I use it with the masks. I also have yet to figure out what the little silicone triangle on the one side of it is for. It’s not really sturdy and I just don’t get it. Maybe some people really like this applicator, but it just wasn’t for me.

Overall Opinion: Overall I thought the set was a good purchase. I’ll definitely get use out of the products and it was nice to get to try a bunch of different products without having to pay the large price tag for each individual item. I can see why GLAMGLOW is so well known for their masks and I’m looking forward to using them for the next while.

*Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. I was not paid to do this blog post and all products were purchased by myself.